What Makes a Motivator?

By Molly Fink

Used with permission from Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility (October 2005 www.shma.com).

While our surroundings shape our perceptions and form who we are, motivation inspires and encourages us to act.

As a child, I remember learning about the generation of Noah and that they were destroyed because they had no compassion for their fellow man — God destroyed them not because they had sinned against God, but because they had sinned against one another. As I matured, I learned the national anthem and sang allegiance to the American flag daily. I was told America was founded on the notion that all men are created equal in the eyes of God. In seventh grade my teacher assigned us to read, for extra credit, the book To Kill a Mockingbird. The narrator of the story, Scout Finch, was about my age; her lesson, however, was ageless. Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, was the hero of the story, but his heroic act was simply that he fought for justice, for the equality of all men. He did not view his actions as activism but human responsibility.

This is a lesson that continues to motivate me today. I am an activist on behalf of the people of Darfur, Sudan. They are experiencing genocide — a social cleansing in which millions have been misplaced from their homes, died of starvation, hunger, heat, or have been savagely murdered, raped, and beaten. These people have been subjected to this cruelty based solely on their ethnicity.

I wake up each day in New York slightly more calloused. Daily, I hear the wailing of the ambulance siren, I read local news accounts of the latest kidnappings, and the newspapers’ horrifying graphic pictures no longer shock me. The feelings of urgency, reaction, and outrage are that much harder to conjure. Yet, I have been taught Jewish values that motivate me to stand up for my beliefs and choose my battles wisely.

I am not just an activist; I am a fighter. I am fighting for the people in Darfur as a Jew, as an American, and as a human being. I fight as a Jew because after the Holocaust the world vowed never again. I am fighting as an American because this nation has shown how powerful its voice can be. The government is the catalyst through which the American people can perform. I am fighting as a human being because we are equal in the eyes of God, and no person has the right to discount another person’s life.

The people who have motivated me are my professor Bryan Daves, journalist Samantha Powers, and my peers at Stern College who raised their voices to spread awareness about Darfur. We all have our prejudices, flaws, and imperfections. But it is what we choose to do with our character that defines who and what we are. We each can make a difference.